CCSF asks commission to reverse decision

Updated 9:34 pm, Tuesday, August 20, 2013

CCSF Physics Professor Jill Johnsen holds a sign during a protest against the possibility of the revocation of the City College of San Francisco in San Francisco, Calif. on July 9, 2013.

CCSF Physics Professor Jill Johnsen holds a sign during a protest against the possibility of the revocation of the City College of San Francisco in San Francisco, Calif. on July 9, 2013.

Photo: Ian C. Bates, The Chronicle

CCSF asks commission to reverse decision

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City College of San Francisco asked a commission on Tuesday to reverse its devastating decision to revoke the school's accreditation next year - but has been told not to share any details of its request with the public.

And, unwilling to upset those who hold its fate in their hands, the college made its request without citing mistakes the commission made when it evaluated the college that were recently identified by the U.S. Department of Education.

The news disappointed faculty, who had hoped the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges would be forced to withdraw its decision to revoke City College's ability to operate after the Department of Education upheld complaints by the faculty union last week. The Department found the commission had violated four regulations in its scrutiny of the large college - including giving the appearance of a conflict of interest when it let the husband of commission President Barbara Beno help evaluate the college.

The Department of Education said its findings could be used as part of the college's appeal of the accrediting decision.

Unlike a court of law, however, accrediting appeals are made to the same commission that issued the original verdict. So the college considered a complaint about the commission too risky.

"I believe that if the college changes direction and begins to attack the commission, rather than working with it to correct the problems in the institution, it will jeopardize our ability to maintain accreditation," Robert Agrella, the state-appointed "special trustee" who has run the college since early July when state officials suspended its Board of Trustees, said in an e-mail to employees posted on the college website.

Agrella told the employees that the federal findings resulted from complaints by the American Federation of Teachers Local 2121, not the college, which has long urged the faculty union not to shoot the umpire.

"I strongly believe that the best path to maintaining CCSF's accreditation is to follow the commission's rules," Agrella said.

As if to prove the point, he said he was obligated to follow a rule the commission revealed last week that took him and his boss, state community colleges Chancellor Brice Harris, by surprise: The contents of the college's request must be kept secret.

Agrella and Harris had just announced that those documents would be made public. The fate of the vast City College is an issue of concern to thousands of students, staff and faculty - as well as the state - and Agrella said he had received many requests for documents to be made public. "Chancellor Harris and I sincerely apologize for our premature comments," Agrella wrote in his e-mail.

"We have been clearly informed by the commission that all parts of the appeal process, including the review, are to be treated as confidential."

News that the process will be kept secret and that the Department of Education findings have been sidelined raised the ire of faculty who thought they were making headway by discrediting the accrediting commission.

"I'm outraged," said Wendy Kaufmyn, an engineering instructor and faculty activist, who immediately dashed off a concerned letter to the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of 17 instructors, counselors and community organizers active in the Save CCSF Coalition.

"The accrediting commission acts like a star chamber," Kaufmyn said in an interview. "They should be operating transparently and democratically - but they don't. Everything is secret."

The commission is one of six regional accrediting agencies that hold thousands of community colleges accountable across the country. All claim a right to privacy because they are nonpublic agencies, though they are funded by dues from public colleges and scrutinized every five years by the U.S. Department of Education, a public agency.

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